You might have to suspend belief when watching season two of Jed Mercurio’s Trigger Point, but when it’s this good, does it matter?
★★★★✰
“The Met is under a constant state of alert. We need to adapt to new threats, new techniques, new enemies,” says Lana Washington (Vicky McClure), as episode one opens. Moments before London goes up in flames behind them. Fresh from a teaching secondment in Ukraine, Lana is back in London. You can’t blame her for wanting to leave the UK, even for a warzone. To recap, Karl (Warren Brown), her military mate she was having an affair with, turned out to be behind the bombing campaign which killed her brother.
Season two of Trigger Point sees an explosion of new threats, techniques and enemies. Still reeling from the loss of her brother Billy, who was killed by the far-right extremists the Met was chasing in season one, steely bomb disposal officer Lana is teetering on an emotional edge.
Like season one, Trigger Point’s second instalment sees Lana’s personal life become wrapped up with the central plot line. Which, in this case, follows an extremist anti-capitalist group’s incredibly sophisticated terror campaign. Expect drones, exploding e-scooters (another reason to bin them off if there ever was one), bombs sewn into teddy bears, and a whole load of other IEDs (improvised explosive devices): there’s no shortage of alarm clock-style countdowns. Where the depraved group lacks logic in every other sense, unfortunately for Lana and her team, it makes up for it in bomb-making abilities. And though the action sequences are sometimes a tad implausible, they remain rooted in real-life in terms of setting, subject matter, and human emotion, making it one of ITV’s most captivating dramas. You can overlook anything far-fetched and respect it as a dramatic tool, because you feel like you’re watching real people with real emotions, whose jobs see them dance with death daily.
The cadence is just right
I still can’t decide whether it’s a good thing when a whole series drops at once. This time, I was relieved. While I might have lost a fair bit of time to adverts, watching Trigger Point in quick succession was the best way to experience the full dramatic crescendo. The show does a great job of always keeping things moving, and I like that we never really knew anything more than the team working on the case. The lack of dramatic irony meant things were always more visceral and high-stakes. Particularly in the first half of the season, as our moment of realisation would mirror Lana’s. And often, this moment came down to the wire. One of the show’s most far-fetched moments is when Lana realises there’s a countdown device under a temporary toilet block. Chances of diffusing it out the window, Lana and Danny (Eric Shango) hook the toilets onto a conveniently placed Land Rover. Lana then speeds into a nearby field, jumps out, and hotfoots it away, just as the toilets and car explode. Everything happens in the space of about 30 seconds, and Lana is barely scratched. Sure, you might have to suspend belief a little here. But does that make it any less tense? I was still screaming at the TV, my toes curling instinctively. So, no, I don’t think it does.
This season feels a little Luther-esque
If you’re squeamish, I should warn you that this season is pretty gruesome. In one scene, for instance, Lana attempts to diffuse a collar bomb on a hostage chained to a radiator. Everything about it makes you feel claustrophobic. Lana’s attempts are futile, and the woman’s head is blown off in her own bathroom. The first of several people we see blown up at close range. This gore combined with the way the barbarous group taunt the police with their sadistic ‘games’ gives a Luther-like feel to the series. In particular, it reminds me of the storyline where our beloved but ethically questionable detective chases down a psychotic set of twin brothers terrorising London; their depraved acts led by a luck-based ‘game’.
An underlying story about grief
While the show is largely plot-driven, there are also character-based stories unravelling. Ticking along in the background are the ups and downs of Lana’s relationship with her parents (Tamzin Griffin and Kevin Eldon) and their relationship with each other. They are grieving their son’s death, but also the fact their daughter could die any day. Each presents its own kind of nuanced grief, and I think the show does a great job of reflecting on different types of grief, how unique grief is, and, in turn, how it shapes—and breaks relationships.
Some great one liners
Vicky McClure is the queen of one liners—perhaps most memorably when she told Anna Maxwell Martin’s character in Line of Duty to “Shut up, you tit” during a police interview. Lana’s character also doesn’t disappoint. Sharp, proud, and fiercely independent, Lana goes off on one to the big boss Commander John Francis (Julian Ovenden), concluding her rant with: “You brown-nosed twat.” Their tenuous relationship and contradicting values makes for some brilliant dialogue, and McClure’s performance is flawless.
Other standout performances
The whole cast is stellar, including the new additions: Natalie Simpson as DS Helen Morgan, Maanuv Thiara as DI Amar Batra, and Tomiwa Edun as the elusive Alex are far from one-dimensional. One performance worth mentioning is Bethan Cullinane’s cold-blooded Hope—the leader of ‘The Wave Project’ terrorist group. She genuinely makes your skin crawl. The way she talks about the world and her view of it makes you want to reach through the television and shake some sense into her. But then, you would be her next victim, as anybody who crosses Hope’s path becomes a pawn in her evil games.
I also like we see more of Lana and Danny’s relationship, and I hope that continues in any future series. Shango does a brilliant job of portraying reserved and self-effacing Danny, who contradicts but complements Lana’s brazenness as they work together to dismantle deadly explosives.
It is far-fetched, but does that matter?
There have been several comments about how improbable the drama is—Lana’s hot-headed tendency to dive into things without clearance and her constant rule-breaking, as well as the IEDs themselves. But drama is drama—it’s not a documentary. We should refrain from basing the merit of a drama on its believability. As the British Army’s first female bomb disposal expert told the Metro, there is plenty of “conflict between what’s good drama and what’s accurate”, and it will be a line Trigger Point are liking to continue crossing if the series returns for another season.
The verdict
Regardless of whether you’re one to wince at the more dubious moments in police and crime drama, you can’t deny McClure and Co. produced some high-octane drama with this series of Trigger Point. It worked because everything was rooted in real-life—as the best dramas are. The threats the team face are hauntingly redolent of real-world events, and the visceral nature of the high-pressure scenes evokes a somewhat sensory viewing experience. And that’s why it deserves four stars. The first season was good, but the second took it up a notch, and I am eagerly awaiting the announcement of season three.
You can stream season one and two of Trigger Point on ITV Hub, or you can find the second season on your TV screens every Sunday on ITV1.
Words by Hannah Bradfield
Support The Indiependent
We’re trying to raise £200 a month to help cover our operational costs. This includes our ‘Writer of the Month’ awards, where we recognise the amazing work produced by our contributor team. If you’ve enjoyed reading our site, we’d really appreciate it if you could donate to The Indiependent. Whether you can give £1 or £10, you’d be making a huge difference to our small team.